Prehistory and palaeontology in Spain

Dinosaurs made (and named) in Spain

Up to now six dinosaurs have been described and defined in Spain.

Number one was Aragosaurus , a sauropod dinosaur from the Lower Cretaceous of Spain, first discovered in the 1950s in the municipality of Galve (province of Teruel) and named in 1987 bySanz, Buscalioni, Casanovas-Cladellas and Santafé-Llopis. Its species name is Aragosaurus ischiaticus . This was a large, quadrupedal herbivore that lived roughly 130-120 million years ago during the stage known as the Barremian. It is believed to have measured some 18 metres in length. It is from the family Camarasauridae, which also includes Camarasaurus.

The second dinosaur to be named was Pararhabdodon isonensis , discovered in the foothills of the Pyrenees, in the province of Lleida, and defined in 1993 by Casanovas-Cladellas, Santafé-Llopis and Isodoro-Llorens. Pararhabdodon was an ornithopod (a group of beaked, mainly bipedal herbivores), closely related to the hadrosaurids or duck-billed dinosaurs and dating from the Upper Cretaceous.

The only new theropod so far found in Spain is Pelecanimimus polyodon , discovered at the Las Hoyas site in Cuenca and defined in 1994 by Perez-Moreno, Sanz, Buscalioni, Moratalla, Ortega and Rasskin-Gutman. This was a gracile, medium-sized theropod closely related to Ornithomimus .

The fourth dinosaur to be defined was another sauropod, Lirainosaurus astibiae , which was found in the province of Burgos and named in 1999 by Sanz, Powell, Le Loeuff, Martinez and Pereda-Suberbiola. This was a titanosauriform dinosaur, found in rocks dating from the Upper Cretaceous.

The fifth too was a sauropod, Losillasaurus giganteus , found in Valencia and named in 2001 by Casanovas-Cladellas, Santafé-Llopis and Sanz. Losillasaurus was a huge diplodocoid, i.e. related to the famous Diplodocus , which lived at the time of the transition between the Jurassic and the Cretaceous, roughly 145 million years ago.

The most recent dinosaur to be named, another sauropod, was Galvesaurus herreroi Barco, Canudo, Cuenca-Bescós and Ruiz-Omeñaca 2005. Like Aragosaurus , this huge quadrupedal herbivore was found in Galve, Teruel. Unlike Aragosaurus , however, Galvesaurus dates from around the end of the Upper Jurassic, making it some 15 to 20 million years senior to the more modern "lizard of Aragon".

The region of Aragon is currently proving something of a hotbed of palaeontological activity. On top of Aragosaurus and Galvesaurus , there are now four more new dinosaurs in the process of being defined.

Aragon, 145 million years ago

Spain's most recently named dinosaur, Galvesaurus herreroi Barco, Canudo, Cuenca-Bescós and Ruiz-Omeñaca 2005, takes its name from Galve, the Aragonese municipality where its fossilized remains were discovered, and José-María Herrero, the amateur palaeontologist who found them there in the 1980s. This big sauropod was formally defined in July 2005 after almost 15 years of excavation and painstaking research and analysis by the Grupo Aragosaurus, the Mesozoic and Quaternary Vertebrate Palaeontology Group of the University of Zaragoza.

Galvesaurus lived at the end of the Jurassic, some 145 million years ago. It measured between 14 and 17 metres in length and weighed between seven and ten tonnes. As a sauropod dinosaur, its locomotion would have been quadrupedal, though no tracks have been ascertained. It was a herbivorous browser, which would have fed on soft shoots and the leaves of conifers and ferns from the abundant vegetation that characterized what was then a coastal region.

It was probably preyed on by carnivorous theropods such as Allosaurus and other smaller ones related to Dromaeosaurus . A rootless tooth from a theropod dinosaur and another from a crocodile were also discovered on the site. The bones were fairly widely dispersed over the site, but the working hypothesis is that they came from just one specimen and were scattered by scavengers or meteorological factors.

The remains of Galvesaurus are currently on display at the Palaeontology Museum of Galve.

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A bit of trivia: The first dinosaurs discovered in Spain (knowingly as dinosaurs rather than the remains of a dragon, giant or monster) were the fossilised bones of two Iguanodons in 1873 by one Vilanova i Piera, the first professor of palaeontology at the University of Madrid in Utrillas (Teruel) and Morella (Castellón). More Spain facts